Weaknesses in different types of anime watchers

Catching up is impossible. What am I talking about? Well, watching anime of course. This is an anime blog after all, what else would I talk about? I think that this is a realization that all of us anime fans and/or fanatics have to live with. More and more anime is produced every season while there is a seemingly endless backlog of anime to watch. You know, those endless amount of series that have been produced since the beginning of anime itself? Yeah, those. The art form of anime has changed over time, like everything else, and so has the way it can be watched. The result of this is that there are quite a few types of anime watchers. Each with their own weak point, from my perspective, when it comes what type of fan you are. It’s crazy how that all works.

The first type of fan that I am going to talk about is the seasonal anime fan. They are, of course, the type of anime fan that keeps up with a large variety of anime by watching one episode a week. This is where the first weak point shows up. I don’t think it’s possible for any one fan to watch every single show that is airing in one season. If you can, are you sleeping enough? Of course, these shows are usually weeded down by personal tastes at first. At first. Then, what if you hear that one of the shows that you aren’t watching is the bees knees or best thing ever? What do you do then? To add to the insanity, what about those older anime series out there that are classics? I know that not every seasonal anime fan watches shows from the past, but I think that’s a huge mistake. Watching older series and seeing where the anime from today came from is a bonus that cannot be underestimated. While watching being a seasonal anime fan and being a part of weekly conversations is a good start for all of this anime craziness, knowing the history of something you love is something that is at a completely different level.

Next on my list are the long running shonen fans. This seems like a small group, but you would be surprised how much they populate the anime fandom. I’ve seen these types of people on too many parts of the internet. There major weakness is obvious. They need to stretch out from their railroad track anime lives. Watching an episode or two a week of a show that never is going to end is dedication, but you could do so much more with your time. Watch something shorter but has something that has a larger impact. A one cour or two cour series may not be at great length, but some long running shonen series take a long time to gain any impact. Shorter series have the same amount of impact in a shorter amount of time. These shows also have a habit of having better animated and choreographed fight scenes too if you stay within the shonen realm. They aren’t held back by spreading of resources to make sure the show keeps going. Try it some time. I’m not forcing you, but please try stepping off the rails sometime.

Anime fans that are not seasonal watchers have so much freedom compared to seasonal and long running shonen fans. They can watch whatever show that they want to at whatever pace they feel like and I envy them because that may be the ideal watching pace for whoever is watching anime. Also, the anime watching library is wide open for these types of fan, because they can watch a show from anytime period they feel like with a widening selection thanks to seasonal series that are not going to stop being made anytime soon. The weak points? Well, for one, these types of fans are not a part of the most recent anime community conversation and when they do eventually watch shows from different seasons, the anime community at large has moved on already. This may not seem like a big deal all and might not be if you don’t care about all that, but you are still left in the wake of the hype from all the seasonal anime watchers. Then again, caring is up to the individual person’s opinion.

Where do I align myself? Well, I am mostly a seasonal anime watcher. Why? Because I am really bad at binge watching anything and watching a whole bunch of different shows one episode at a time during the week is my version of binge watching. This also allows me to try different types of shows that I usually wouldn’t. With this seasonal stuff, I also supplement my anime library with an older show that I watch when I have the time. This allows me to put my toes in different sides of the anime fandom. I’ve watched enough older shows to have a conversation with people who are fans of retro anime, people who are as old as I am (I don’t like the fact that I am getting older either), and newer/seasonal fans too. It’s a great time all around.

I want to get this off of the top of my head, all of this is my opinion. Nobody needs to listen to what I have to say or follow what advice I would like to give. I may not have even listed all types of anime fans. There are those who only watch Studio Ghibli movies and I’m sure there is more that exist then that. All of this is some sort of generalization. This post only addresses a select few types of anime fans based on generations. Whatever you want to do with your anime watching life is fine with me. People can watch whatever anime they want whenever they want. That’s part of why this anime fandom is great. There is so many ways to enjoy these strange cartoons that are Japanese in origin. All I want to do is help people have a more balance position in the fandom so that people can understand each other’s different point of view.

Post navigation

25 thoughts on “Weaknesses in different types of anime watchers”

I’m more of the last type. I watch any Anime that I find amusing and or my friends are recommending. It doesn’t matter if it’s old or new, tho. Anime is still Anime for me. Any genre is fine too as long as I enjoy the plot and the art quality.

Exactly. I’m not watching something to satisfy someone else (unless it’s a date, then I might take a hit), I’m watching it for me.

I’ll watch the first episode of whatever comes out, give it a chance to hook me. If it can’t, then I move on. If it can, then I follow it. That might be bingeing it later, or, if it *really* hooked me, following it every week. …or, in the case of One Piece, I let it the episodes build up for about a year and then binge it around the holiday season. 🙂

So, true enough statement; it is hard to have conversations about the latest thing in anime when you’re a marathon watcher like me. I usually* wait until a show is fully released (and hopefully has a good dub!) before watching.

*There are exceptions of course! The Ancient Magus Bride is incredible, and I’m watching it weekly via Simuldub!

I kind of like the mix of seasonal watching and binges of older stuff. Admittedly, at the moment I’m not really making a lot of progress on my backlog of older series but that’s because things got a bit crazy in real life so I’m barely keeping up with the seasonal stuff this season. However, once things settle I’ve got a nice list of anime to binge and I am going to enjoy it.

I figured out my memory can only take a certain amount of shows at once, so I fill a few of those positions with seasonal shows and fill up the rest of that space with older shows – I prioritise my backlog into a few “tiers” to help with this. While it does mean the older shows get a lot less love once I’m in the swing of things, it’s probably a lot more efficient than people who watch everything.

In the case of anime watching in general, it’s really just a case of fear of missing out – if you don’t get anxiety over shows you miss, those shows won’t matter to you once they’re pulled from streaming sites.

I’ve been a long running Shonen fan for a long time but I am trying to stay currrnt and at least watch one or two seasonal shows with everyone else each season. It’s definitely tough to choose between watching a classic or a new one though and lately I’ve cut down on anime watching temporarily since I’m getting used to a new job. I try to have a system for it though where on Sunday and Thursday I watch the long running titles like DB Super and One Piece then on Saturday I watch the newer shows like Hero Academia . (Well it’s over now but that was my usual Saturday title) The backlog certainly does get bigger each and every year though which can certainly be overwhelming

That was a well written piece. I don’t see myself as most of those fans since I’m still focused on the older series, so I’m lost on the seasons and I’m not that much into most shonen series. Also, thanks for checking out my Key the Metal Idol review!